


Rage

by fauxtales



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Excessive Destruction of Propery, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Violent Anger, anger issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxtales/pseuds/fauxtales
Summary: Isa never thought of himself as an angry person. Then he became Saïx.
Relationships: Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Rage

Isa never thought of himself as an angry person. He knew he could feel anger, deep down, but it took quite a bit to find it. Sure, Lea could be annoying and an injustice in the world might get to him, but in general, Isa wasn’t an angry person.

Then he became a Nobody.

Isa may not have been angry, but Saïx is a whole other story. He knows, logically, that he can’t actually feel anger. Anything that he may think he feels, any echo of emotion that may try to work its way under his skin - all of it is just a memory. The anger that Saïx feels isn’t real.

And yet… And yet it bursts from him in violent bouts, controlling his body like a puppet as if he were one of the lesser berserker Nobodies. He’s the one with control over them, so who is controlling him? His anger? 

It doesn’t really make any sense. Isa was never an angry person, so why would the memory of anger be the one that stands out the most? Saïx can’t seem to understand it, can’t seem to control it. Not that anyone around him is helping in that. No, it seems that the entire organization is determined to get on his nerves at any given moment, pushing him to that precipice far faster than Saïx ever thought possible. Or, in the case of Xemnas and Vexen, deliberately making him shift into that uncontrollable anger just to see what it could do.

Saïx doesn’t know where the ability came from, but he learns very fast how to use it. Or perhaps how to let it use him.

Axel seems to be the only one concerned. He’s the one at the most risk of falling to Saïx’s anger though, so that’s hardly surprising. Axel is more of an irritating asshole than Lea ever was - or maybe Saïx is just that much quicker to annoyance - so it’s not as if he’s unfamiliar with Saïx’s rages. Nor is he someone who can make Saïx stop. Maybe, once upon a time, he would have been that person. At the beginning of all of this, Saïx thinks he was. When he wanted to calm down, all he had to do was picture Lea’s face, frightened and confused as the keyblade was drawn to cut them both down. Nowadays, all Saïx can see is the cold look in Axel’s green eyes.

Maybe this is his punishment for pushing his best friend away. Late at night, Saïx tells himself it’s just that, that his loyalty to Xemnas surpassed his loyalty to Axel, and in return he lost himself in his own head. It’s not as if that’s entirely wrong.

Other nights, Axel shows up in his room and all of that is forgotten. There isn’t laughter between them anymore - Saïx thinks he’s forgotten how to laugh - but there are still breathless gasps and whispered words of adoration, a balm to the daily shouts and barbs of irritation that is their performance for the rest of their coworkers. Nearly all of them know Axel and Saïx were and are close, despite all of the apparent tension between them, but no one can ever know how close. It’s too dangerous.

Then again, the danger of being found out seems to diminish every day. Somewhere along the line, the fights stopped feeling quite so performative. Saïx feels heat radiating off of Axel that is more threatening than anything the wild redhead could say and Saïx’s claymore is in his hand before he has the thought to summon it. They’re in the hallway, where anyone could turn the corner and see them. Axel looks shocked at the addition of a weapon to their fight, a mirror to the sharpness in Saïx’s chest.

“So you’re going to keep me in line with force now, huh?” Axel spits. For someone so hot, his voice is like ice. Saïx is breathing hard, trying to reign in the memory of all consuming anger coursing through his veins; he doesn’t remember ever feeling like this before, but he must have. Surely, that’s the only way he could be mimicking it now?

“Well, maybe if you would listen to me, I wouldn’t have to,” Saïx says, trying to cover up the fact that he didn’t choose this. His anger is getting the better of him and he can’t even remember what this argument was about. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway. “You act like you can do whatever you want, but you can’t! Why can’t you see the position we’re in here?”

“I see it all perfectly,” Axel shoots back. There is the flicker of flames at his hands now, a defense mechanism against the threat of Saïx’s weapon. “I see how you’ve become even more of a control freak and just want me to do everything without question!”

“You questioning things just makes it all more complicated.”

“I deserve to know why I’m killing people!”

The air between them rings with the desperation in Axel’s voice. He never liked his role in the organization as their assassin. Saïx knows that. It’s just that he’s so very good at it and making him into someone so essential and dangerous made it easier for Saïx to keep him close by. The secretiveness of the role also made it easier to send Axel on missions that have nothing to do with the goals of the organization itself.

If only Axel could understand.

“You don’t need to know.” Saïx keeps his voice level. If he can just catch his breath, maybe he’ll be able to ease his hold on his claymore and dismiss it. Maybe the tight knot of anger will leave his chest.

“You’re asking me to kill someone on our side,” Axels hisses. Saïx flinches at that, if only because it’s not exactly something he wants anyone else to hear. He glances around the hallway, checking to make sure they’re alone.

“Not on our side,” Saïx insists. Axel shakes his head, that bitter and disbelieving smile on his face. “When are you going to get this? These people are not your friends, Axel. None of them care about you and any one of them might turn around and stab you in the back at the flip of a switch. If you’re seen as a threat, you’ll be taken out. Just like now.”

All of the fight seems to drain from Axel’s body. The temperature of the hallway drops and Saïx feels like he can breathe again. If only the anger would leave him so quickly.

“Whatever. I don’t know why I bother.”

The conversation ends like all of their conversations seem to: with Axel sulking and retreating farther and farther from Saïx, while Saïx tries to act as if he wasn’t on the edge of bringing the walls down around them.

Hours later, Saïx still feels the tug of anger in his chest. He struggles to read through sloppy reports from Demyx, listens with impatience and irritation as Larxene and Luxord complain to him about something unimportant, feels it boiling under his skin all over again as Xigbar follows him around just to taunt him and leer. When Saïx finally gets some peace, tries to settle down and make the schedule for the next day, he finds himself willing the paper on his desk to catch on fire. He’s never been good at magic though and fire doesn’t bend to his will with the ease that Axel makes it play over his fingertips and Saïx ends up sweeping his arm across his desk instead. 

The crash and clatter of pens and binders and books hitting the floor is satisfying. It’s not nearly enough. Saïx shoves his lamp off the desk, listens to the shatter of glass as the bulb bursts. He stands, the force from his movement knocking his chair back - and that too is satisfying. A book hits the wall on the far side of his room - bang. His desk topples over - crash. The blue of his claymore meets the grey of his bed and the sound of splintering wood is so much like breaking bone that Saïx can almost imagine it’s Xigbar’s skull under his weapon instead.

Saïx leaves his room then. He gives a brusque order to a dusk to get the mess cleaned up, then quickly stalks to the training room. Destroying more property that they need to use is probably not the best idea, but Saïx can still feel the destructive power under his veins, itching to be released, and he can’t stay in one place.

The next few hours are a blur. Saïx is sure that anyone who walks in on him will see nothing but a monster, gold overflowing from his eyes as he tears through dusks and training equipment alike, destroying anything that gets in his path. It doesn’t take long for him to surrender to the feeling completely, and most of his destruction is led more by his claymore than himself. Saïx feels like he’s floating, just outside his body, watching as he tears a room apart in unnamed and uncontrolled anger.

Isa was never an angry person.

Saïx is a monster, a tangled mass of ignored (fake) emotions, unable to hold back and unable to do anything but howl in rage. Words seem impossible to form, not that he tries. If anyone bothered talking to him right now, they would be met with a growl and a murder attempt.

Eventually, Saïx can’t go anymore. It’s an abrupt end, as if his body hits a wall and suddenly his limbs feel too heavy to move any longer. Saïx drops to the ground from a wide swing of his weapon, taking out a lesser nobody with the swing, and stops. His claymore disappears, the golden glow overflowing from his eyes dissipates, and the world seems to refocus. How much time has passed, Saïx has no way of knowing, but he’s sure it must have been hours.

From the side of the room, the sound of slow clapping starts up. For the briefest of moments, Saïx hopes that it’s Axel; that they’ll talk things out with more clarity now that Saïx has worked the anger from his veins, that Axel will forgive him and maybe even worry over the fact that he’s losing himself more and more every day. Even if Saïx saw that glint of fear in Axel’s eyes again, that would be better than where they left off.

“Impressive! I rarely get to see moon boy cut loose like that.” The lazy voice that drifts over to Saïx instead just makes him feel more exhausted. The blood is rushing in his ears and his panting hasn’t even calmed down and Xigbar is already walking toward him. Saïx glares. Xigbar smirks. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m giving you a compliment! It’s impressive.”

Saïx makes a move to walk away, to put any amount of distance between himself and this horrid man, but Xigbar is faster. He slings an arm around Saïx’s shoulders, pulls him in close and traps Saïx against his side. The growl that escapes Saïx’s throat shocks him. It just makes Xigbar laugh.

“So feisty. Y'know I’m sure the Superior would love to have another look at your abilities,” Xigbar says. His tone is casual, as if he doesn’t have Saïx trapped against him. As if Saïx isn’t breathing heavy with spent energy and simmering frustration, being slowly revived by Xigbar himself. As if Saïx doesn’t feel like he might be about to collapse under the weight of his own power. “It’s been a bit since he and Vexen took a thorough look at you, mister lapdog. I wonder what he would say now.”

“Let go of me,” Saïx hisses. Xigbar just laughs and jostles him some more.

“Aw, what? You don’t like hugs?” Xigbar grins down at him. It’s a cruel grin, one that says he knows exactly what he’s doing here. Saïx wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole.

“Let. Go.” The crackle of energy around Saïx’s hand threatening to materialize as his claymore again gets Xigbar to finally back off. He steps away, holding his hands up in surrender. The amused chuckle in his throat reveals how unthreatened he really is, but Saïx couldn’t care less. So what if he can’t actually intimidate Xigbar? As long as he stops touching him, it’s fine.

“Alright, alright! So testy.” Xigbar shoves his hands in his pockets instead. His posture is a show of nonthreatening, shoulders slumped to casual relaxation, all his weight on one foot as he sways slightly to the side. Saïx eyes him, perfectly aware of how dangerous this man is at any given moment.

“Are you just here to slack off and harass me?” Saïx asks, his words containing the bite of barely restrained hostility. Xigbar keeps smiling. “If you’re bored, I’m sure I could find a whole list of things for you to do.”

“Nah, I was just coming down to check on the sounds of a war going on down here.” Xigbar’s tone is flippant but his words have Saïx pausing. Was he really that vicious? He scans the training room, suddenly aware of the destruction done to his surroundings. His eyes widen slightly as Xigbar speaks. “See, I wasn’t too concerned, but the whole castle was shaking like we were being attacked.”

There’s a large chunk missing from the wall.

“Larxene and Marluxia showed up to complain and you know how those two are.”

The floor is cracked open in multiple places, the marks of a claymore clear.

“I was just going to keep ignoring it, but then Demyx started whining and Vexen started bitching and well. I couldn’t find you to deal with it, so I had to come down myself, and lo and behold!”

Any training equipment that is normally kept in the room is completely destroyed, bits and pieces scattered across the floor. 

“You were the cause the whole time.”

The husks of dying dusks fill the room with a fine mist.

Saïx stumbles back a bit, shocked that he caused this. Shocked that he hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t thought his rage blinded him this much, but now it hits him that if anyone else had been in the room, he’s not sure he would have been able to stop. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed them.

Xigbar is still standing there, watching him, grinning, as if the carnage in the room is inconsequential. Saïx takes a deep breath, trying to get himself together. It doesn’t work very well.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Xigbar’s voice curls around him, cloying and taunting. Saïx hates it. Saïx hates _him_. “You gonna pass out on me there, Blue?”

“I’m fine,” Saïx finally manages. He tames his expression, getting it back into the careful neutral he always has, or something close to it. When his gaze lands back on Xigbar, he doesn’t actually look at him, just through him. It’s the only way he can keep from falling apart completely. “I’ll send some dusks to clean this up. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

As Saïx turns away, he just catches the glint of something in Xigbar’s eye. Something dangerous and predatory. Something Saïx doesn’t want to deal with right now, so he doesn’t bother to comment, instead making his way steadily out of the room. He doesn’t even bother to acknowledge the comment Xigbar throws after him, no matter how barbed.

“Keep this up, and I’ll bet you’ll bring the castle down in no time.”

\----

There’s a horrible tightness in Saïx’s chest. When he was Isa, he might have identified it is dread, but now he just ignores it. No matter how terrible it may be, he can’t feel, so it can only ever be a ghost. False and inconsequential.

All is advancing as planned. Axel is away at Castle Oblivion, dealing with the biggest problems standing in Saïx’s way and far away from Roxas and the puppet. Saïx has planted himself firmly at Xemnas’s side and has been able to do his own research, digging up more about what Xemnas is really after and how he can better destabilize the entire operation. Xigbar is still a pain in the ass, but it’s nothing Saïx can’t deal with.

So why does his chest feel like this? Why does it feel like he has to constantly look over his shoulder or risk losing everything all over again? He can feel Axel drifting away, he can feel his own latent anger bubbling under his skin, hot and tempting and so easy to give in to, and his chest aches. It’s all going to come crashing down around him if he isn’t careful and Saïx can see no way to prevent it.

Axel doesn’t report in. Dusks return to the Castle That Never Was with reports that every person in Castle Oblivion has been annihilated and Saïx feels his throat close up. He hasn’t heard from Axel in weeks, hasn’t had a single report from him, and the castle has gone silent.

Saïx destroys one of the many offices in the castle in a fit of rage and Xigbar stares at him knowingly.

Roxas’s apparent concern for Axel just makes Saïx feel worse. He finds himself wishing he could show that concern. He wants so badly to express a fear that Axel has gone and died on him, fallen at the hand of the keyblade wielder and left Saïx behind, but he can’t. No matter how his throat closes up at the thought or how heavy his limbs feel, he can’t seem to muster up the ability to express it. He’s not really feeling it anyway. Or so he tells himself.

Axel shows up. Saïx snaps at him and Axel shrugs him off as always. Another office is destroyed.

Is this the cycle they live in now? Axel does something other than what Saïx asks for, and Saïx is thrown into a fit of rage that destroys another room while Axel stares on impassively? The fire that is always in Axel’s eyes seems to have turned cold as he watches Saïx scold him and it just pisses Saïx off all the more.

Not that any of it matters. They’ll have Kingdom Hearts and their hearts back soon enough, and then…

Then none of this will matter.

Then…

Isa will never think of himself as an angry person again.


End file.
